Illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico has been an issue for many years, but the government has failed to do anything about it so far. Finally however, it seems as though the United States government may finally take real action against illegals crossing the border. President Bush promised on Wednesday, October 11^th to work to fence off the most vulnerable parts of the United States’ border with Mexico.

This would be no ordinary fence, however. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, this would be a “700-mile barrier that would consist of physical and electronic “virtual” components.” Many critics of the “virtual” components say that a physical barrier is the best way, due to the possibility that the electronic devices could be overwhelmed by large numbers of illegals rushing spots on the border all at once.

Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security has been pushing for more high-tech methods to help police the border. President Bush said in response “We're going to do both,” including, he added, utilizing a “combination of fencing and technologies – UAVs, sensors.” President Bush allotted 1.2 billion dollars last week as a type of down payment towards the projected 12 billion dollars of the finished product. This was also an opportunity to further publicize his favored guest worker program.

Mexico’s President-Elect, Felipe Calderon is not pleased about the fence. He was quoted in an interview last Wednesday saying “This fence they are leaving me is going to enormously complicate relations with the United States.” Many Mexican officials think that the fence is disrespectful to the work that current Mexican President Vicente Fox did with the United States on immigration during his six year term.

To me, it doesn’t really matter what Mexico thinks about the inevitability of improved border security, because it would cause their government to actually take responsibility for the problems in their own country, instead of relegating care of their people to the United States. While they try to feign outrage through something that they would like to be considered righteous, the Mexican government and its leaders really are only trying to save their own national pocketbooks and resources. They have depended on the United States for years to take the overflow of poor that need help, and border fences will help to end their inactivity towards their own citizens.

Not only are there problems with regular people coming across the border, but criminals and drug smugglers cross daily, yet again allowing Mexico to happily pass more problems onto the United States. Also, innocent people coming across the border to try for a better life die regularly, because they have been abandoned by their own government. Even with this, the Mexican government claims that the fence will cause more deaths, but seemingly will not do anything about trying to prevent them.

Last Thursday in protest, Mexican groups in Ciudad Juarez helped to begin the “First Social Border Forum” taking place in Juarez. These protestors blocked the bridge leading into El Paso, Texas for half an hour before breaking it up. According to the International Herald-Tribune, The protestors were mainly concerned with the building of what they dramatically dubbed the “Wall of Death.” Instead of pulling the old international standard of blaming the United States for everything, they should be protesting their own government for their blatant and deadly failure to take care of their own citizens.

Luckily, the United States is committed to looking out for its own citizens and their wallets, which is why the border fence must be built. Even though it’s not feasible to build a fully contiguous fence across the massive border, President Bush realizes what has to be done. “You can't fence the entire border, but what you can do is you can use a combination of fencing and technology to make it easier for the Border Patrol to enforce our border … And so I look forward to not only implementing that which Congress has funded, in a way that says to folks, the American people, we'll enforce our border.”

Mexico has been able to claim righteousness in their fight against the border, but that’s simply not the case. Mexico has had an easy way out of responsibility for too many years. If something has to be done to help those that are unable to produce a living for their families in Mexico, it should be done by their own government for their own people.